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Wednesday, 18 March 2015

For Lack Of A Better Word

I'm moved by words. I pondered if it's in equal measures with astounding photos that are almost eloquent. Words take precedence, for they create images in my mind which I can't physically look at or hold. I see them floating in space before me, queueing and rearranging themselves to form the words I consciously pluck from the assembly line to articulate and express myself.

Sometimes though, there are no words to describe what we feel or think. What did we do when we were children and could barely spell or pronounce our names?

We made up words.

There's no stopping us, adults, from doing the same when our supposedly wide vocabulary still leaves us speechless from time to time.

On his blog The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, graphic designer and filmmaker John Koenig more than made up for the lack of better words to name certain emotions, he also accompanied the entries with narrative videos not only for entertainment value, but also to further illustrate the definition of the words.

I was drawn to these ones:

Onism

n.
the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one
place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures
screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like
other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never
get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map
helpfully points out, you are here.

Vemödalen

n. the frustration of photographing something amazing
when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the
same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an
eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and
cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have
assembled yourself.Vellichorn. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which
are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of
old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked
in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the
author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left
just as they were on the day they were captured.

Gnossiennen. a
moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a
private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of
their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading
to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished
attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately
neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing
exactly where you stand.Mal de coucoun. a phenomenon in which you have an active social life but very
few close friends—people who you can trust, who you can be yourself
with, who can help flush out the weird psychological toxins that tend to
accumulate over time—which is a form of acute social malnutrition in
which even if you devour an entire buffet of chitchat, you’ll still feel
pangs of hunger.

Anecdoche

n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but
nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of
Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way
to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

via youtube.com

Sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is
living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own
ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic
story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep
underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives
that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as
an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing
on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Ecstatic shock

n. the surge of energy upon catching a glance from
someone you like—a thrill that starts in your stomach, arcs up through
your lungs and flashes into a spontaneous smile—which scrambles your
ungrounded circuits and tempts youto chase that feeling with a kite and
a key.

Heartworm

n. a relationship or friendship that you can’t get out
of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow
alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers
still have the power to start a forest fire.

Antematter

n. the dream versions of things in your life, which
appear totally foreign but are still somehow yours—your anteschool, your
antefriends, your antehome—all part of a parallel world whose
gravitational pull raises your life’s emotional stakes, increasing the
chances you’ll end up betting everything you have.

Hanker sore

adj. finding a person so attractive it actually kinda pisses you off.

Dialecstatic

adj. hearing a person with a thick accent pronounce a
certain phrase—the Texan “cooler,” the South African “bastard,” the
Kiwi “thirty years ago”—and wanting them to repeat it over and over
until the vowels pool in the air and congeal into a linguistic taffy you
could break apart and give as presents.

Dialecstatic made me smile at the thought of how the Scottish pronounce 'six'. Ask one to say it for you. Then make them repeat it.

John Koenig is described on Facebook as someone into jazz piano, deep image poetry, and nostalgia. Interesting, but not surprising, judging from his word-weaving talent. The stalker in me googled him.

It turns out that there are a few John Koenigs out there, and the most famous is the ninth and last commander of Moonbase Alpha from the film, Space: 1999, played by Martin Landau.

Like dictionaries where words all seem to be made up had the etymology not been placed next to it, some authors exist in our literary imagination in the form of their pen names. Or screen name. Or stage name. Or a name other than their name.

Whatever the case may be, I'm 'wordenvious'. I wish I was the one who came up with this genius of a dictionary.What about you? Ever made up a word?

THE NUTTER BEHIND THIS IS. . .

Unravelling life when not dozing off during my train ride...
A book-sniffing pessoptimist restrained thinking introvert (those Facebook-sponsored personality tests can get quite addictive), I'm happy to engineer things in the background to avoid the limelight. I love lakes, rivers, G&T, and independent magazines. I went from aspiring to be a majorette when I was little to a forensic pathologist when I realised that white knee-high boots aren't chic. Sunrise, sunset, dawn and midnight, horror flicks, crime TV shows, libraries, museums, new books, black roll neck, jasmine green tea, dry shampoo, dancing, full moon, wintry beaches, mountain views, history, black and white photos, chandeliers, silence, alone time, red lipstick: these are a few of my favourite things.